Editorial
The Gist
- Reevaluating the state of customer experience (CX): Despite decade-long advancements in CX, over 50% of consumers in a recent study felt experiences have worsened, with most stating they're becoming more restrictive.
- Consequences of channel-forcing and fragmented technologies: Consumers expect seamless, personalized interactions across different channels. However, 70% of respondents found it harder to reach a live agent for issue resolution.
- Building customer trust and redefining CX: The current customer trust crisis calls for a shift in mindset, seeing the world through the customers' perspective.
Today's buyers and users call all the shots. For sellers, the path to success requires they meet customers where they are on their terms. To achieve this, companies have embraced customer experience ("CX"). For some, CX is a comprehensive business strategy. For others, it's a marketing or technology "thing."
Experience is top of mind. Buyers, sellers, leaders — everyone — wants a great experience. It's all the goodness that comes from a dopamine rush. Sadly, the actual state of CX is not as rosy as it is portrayed.
We're 10-plus years into the CX movement. Companies have made great strides in understanding expectations, aligning internal processes, and leveraging technologies to meet customer expectations.
Customer Experiences Worsen, Become Restrictive
Yet, this year's Customer Contact Week annual study of CX Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities found over 50% of consumers feel experiences have "gotten worse," and most of the respondents believe that "experiences are becoming more restrictive." Hardly a glowing report card on the results of CX efforts. Given the money thrown at CX, the reality is more akin to having created a Franken Monster than a strategic transformation that delights and enchants customers.
How could something with so much potential go so wrong?
Customer Grievances: Long Wait Times and Disappointment
One reason is what I refer to as the "credibility gap," where the walk doesn't match the talk. Brands have loudly promoted their commitment to customer experience. The message “we listen, we care” is everywhere, from mission statements and marketing to social media. Yet, according to the CCW study, consumers feel brands are slipping in delivering personalized experiences.
According to the study, "more than 28% of consumers feel brands are doing nothing right." Specifically, brands are "neither respecting customers' time nor tailoring interactions to their unique needs." Only 14% felt that chatbots and other technologies improved their experience. That's a biggie in the face of the billions spent annually on CX-related technology.
Customers expect their brand interactions to be efficient, friendly, proactive and personalized. Yet, we've all experienced the annoyance of repeating the same information multiple times if you can reach a human agent.
The list of customer grievances is long, ranging from long wait times and receiving inaccurate information to brands' inability to support omnichannel interactions. The credibility gap exists because customers know technology can address these persistent pain points, yet companies must employ it correctly. With an annual investment in CX/CEM technology of over $640 Billion, it is baffling these issues persist.
Related Article: FTC Dings Amazon for Poor Customer Experience on Amazon Prime
Customers Resent Channel-Forcing
When push comes to shove on important issues, customers turn to their phones for resolution. Countless studies have shown this preference regardless of generation, gender and location. The CCW study finding is the same. Over 95% of respondents expect to be able to reach a live agent to resolve their issues. And over 70% of respondents believe it is now harder to reach an agent.
Brands are not listening. Whether under the moniker of digital transformation, customer self-service or cost-cutting, customers perceive brands to be "cutting corners" on support and service. On issues where resolution is deemed critical to the customer, the trust levels in live chat, email, messaging, chatbots, digital help desks and social media are not there. However, the latter is increasingly used as a vehicle for raging at a brand.
Brands have only themselves to blame. According to Brian Cantor, principal analyst with CCW Digital, “Brands have overly fragmented technology and use cases which creates more distrust and ire with customers.”
The more challenging brands make it for customers to engage with them, the higher churn and negative word of mouth. Forcing customers to use digital channels "breeds resentment" and fuels customer rage. Customers believe the caliber of digital support channels needs to be commensurate with talking to an agent.
Customers Trust Peer Opinions
As I've written before, buying teams' journeys are rapidly evolving. Buyers are ostensibly completing their evaluation before contacting the preferred vendor. While price is an important variable, increasingly, buyers are zeroing in on the post-purchase experience. How responsive and knowledgeable is support, is there consistency in the experience, does the brand value and care about the customer?
Buyers rely on peers and online reviews for feedback and put a lot of trust in what they hear. Negative feedback from a trusted colleague can eliminate a brand from initial or repeat purchase consideration. The CCW study found that over 50% of respondents trust reviews in select cases. Brands must pay attention to customer sentiment after each purchase and meaningfully engage.
Interestingly, the study found that "67% of consumers say that a brand's public stances on polarizing issues," and 84% shared that hearing or knowing about employee mistreatment impacts their support for that brand.
How brands behave in public shapes customer sentiment. The most impactful actions are how brands respond to feedback on rating sites — from Glassdoor to industry-specific sites. Platitudes sound nice but are seen as disingenuous, which erodes trust. Actions do speak louder than words.
Related Article: 5 Ways to Optimize Your Customer Feedback Program
Rehabilitating CX and Redefining Customer Trust
No one refutes customer trust needs to improve but how. We need a mindset shift that starts and stays in seeing the world through the eyes of customers and ecosystem members.
Changing our mindset includes redefining what we mean by experience. Experience should be a strategic element that shapes culture, strategy, products/services and accountability. And that means defining the experiences delivered to all stakeholders in our ecosystems, including vendors, employees, and communities — not just customers. Experiences that are frictionless, productively using data to make their roles, lives, and transactions easier and efficient. And holding brands and partners accountable because the customer doesn’t see a difference.
Commensurate with this is changing the vocabulary we use. Words and phrases convey concepts beyond their literal definition. Phrases like “demand generation,” “one and done,” and CLTV silently convey that a buyer/customer can be manipulated.
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Seeing the world through the eyes of stakeholder groups is easy. It requires asking questions and active listening. When asked, stakeholders are eager to share and are very clear on what they want, where, how, and why. There are many vehicles for capturing behaviors, actions, underlying motivations, and decision variables — journey mapping, won/lost and qualitative interviews, co-creation sessions, etc. The key is to start and keep doing it.
With the lifecycle of a relationship with a brand or product documented, align or stitch together external with internal touchpoints, data, and processes. That stitching includes structuring interactions to be productive and value-based instead of chatty conversations. The rest is all about execution, resulting in what every brand needs — awareness, preference and advocacy.
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